September 11, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



341 



eartliquake — a frequent occurrence also in 

 similar regions on the Caspian. 



In the earlier translation by Haupt the 

 suggestions of earthquake intervention 

 were even more striking than in the later 

 translations. ''Adar lets the canals over- 

 flow unceasingly. The Annuniki bring 

 floods from the depths. They make the 

 earth tremble by their might." Although 

 hurricane inundations have overwhelmed 

 great areas of land, the earthquake wave 

 is in many ways a mere probable agency 

 here for the production of a flood, excep- 

 tional as this must have been to have im- 

 pressed itself so deeply on this ancient folk. 

 We recall the Lisbon earthquake wave ; 

 how the United States warship Mononga- 

 hela was carried ashore in 1863, at Santa 

 Cruz, and landed on the tops of the houses; 

 or how the great seismic wave of 1868 car- 

 ried the Wateree in the harbor of Arica, 

 Peru, seven or eight miles inland, landing 

 her in a tropical forest, where she ended 

 her days as a hotel, while her consort, the 

 Fredonia, rolled over and over, and sank 

 with all on board; or the last terrible earth- 

 quake waves in Japan and China. 



The account then advances strongly to its 

 climax and catastrophe. " Eamman's flood- 

 wave mounts up to heaven." All light 

 sinks in darkness. Terror overcomes gods 

 and men. '' Like dogs in their lair the gods 

 crouch at the windows of heaven." This 

 is the description of the incoming of the 

 great cyclonic waves, perhaps reinforced by 

 earthquake waves, for when the seismic 

 tension has just come to equal the resist- 

 ance the great additional strain caused by 

 the relief of pressure of the low barometer 

 of the cyclone has not infrequently set loose 

 the impending earthquake. Of 64 hurri- 

 canes in the Antilles 7 were accompanied 

 by earthquakes. In the Bay of Bengal the 

 cyclones average one a year and destroy a 

 million people in a century ; and once at 

 Calcutta, in 1737, when the waters rose 40 



feet, 14 ships were carried over the trees 

 and 300,000 people were killed ; and on the 

 Kistna in 1 800 the cyclone and the earth- 

 quake occurred together. Indeed, several 

 of these cyclones have been traced across 

 into the Persian Gulf, and one in 1769 was 

 accompanied by an earthquake on the lower 

 Euphrates — the very site of the ancient 

 myth. On the broad plains of the Punjaub 

 are many indications of similar inundations. 

 I travelled, said Ibn Batuta (1333), through 

 Sind to the town Sahari, on the coast of 

 the Indian Sea, where the Indus joins it. A 

 few miles from here are the ruins of another 

 town, in which stones in the form of men 

 and animals in almost innumerable amount 

 occur. The people were so sinful that God 

 changed them to stone and their animals 

 and their grain. It is interesting to ob- 

 serve the different effects these disturbing 

 events have upon people of different grades 

 of culture. 



The Negritos of the Andaman Islands 

 have a demon of the land who causes the 

 earthquakes, a demon of the sea who causes 

 the floods. 



The King of Dahomey in 1862 had re- 

 ceived the missionaries in the land. The 

 spirit of his fathers shakes the earth be- 

 cause old observances were not followed. 

 The King executes three captive chiefs as 

 an envoy to inform his fathers that the an- 

 cient rites shall be re-established. 



After the great earthquake of Kioto and 

 Osaka in Japan, in 1596, the warrior Hidi- 

 yoshi goes to the temple of Daibutzu (the 

 Buddha) , where the enormous bronze statue 

 had been overthrown, and upbraids the 

 fallen idol and shoots it with arrows. 



In 62 A. D. Oppolonius of Tyana, at 

 Phsestus, in Crete, was preaching to a com- 

 pany of worshippers of the local deity, when 

 an earthquake arose. " Peace," he said, 

 '' the sea has brought forth a new land." An 

 island was found between Thera and Crete, 

 Santorin, beloved of all geologists in modern 



